More than 500 emergency workers, along with hundreds of villagers, are desperately trying to rescue a 10-year-old boy trapped for the past 80 hours inside a borewell infested with scorpions and snakes in eastern India.
Rahul Singh, a deaf and mute boy, fell into the 18-metre defunct pit in the backyard of his home in the village of Piharid in the Janjgir-Champa district of Chhattisgarh on Friday.
His father, Lala Ram Sahu, started to dig a borewell a few days earlier for water but abandoned it when it did not yield any results.
He and his wife Geeta were at work when Rahul fell into the pit on Friday evening.
Authorities immediately launched a rescue operation, first considering pulling him out using ropes.
The federal National Disaster Response Force and army were then called to help.
For more than three days, more than 500 personnel from various rescue agencies have been digging a parallel pit to reach Rahul, who is stable and receiving food.
The teams were on Tuesday around two-and-a-half metres from Rahul but a rocky area has slowed down rescue efforts.
Authorities have reached out to robotics experts to help get the mission back on track and have arranged for anti-venom to be at hand, as the borewell is infested with snakes and scorpions.
“Rahul's condition is stable. He is responsive. Hard Rocks posing a great challenge in drilling/tunnelling,” NDRF tweeted on Tuesday.
Visuals shared by state chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Twitter on Monday showed rescuers persuading Rahul to eat as they dropped food to him using ropes.
Mr Baghel said the operation was taking a long time due to the presence of rocks during drilling for the parallel tunnel.
Incidents of children falling into borewells are common in India, where there are an estimated 27 million wells.
A one-year-old girl was rescued after she was stuck four-and-a-half metres down a 30-metre borewell on a farm in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh in December.
As many as 40 children died in such accidents between 2009 and 2019, according to the National Disaster Response Force.
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Director: Navdeep Singh
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John Heminway, Knopff
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
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Asian Champions League, last 16, first leg:
Al Jazira 3 Persepolis 2
Second leg:
Monday, Azizi Stadium, Tehran. Kick off 7pm
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
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Company: Eighty6
Date started: October 2021
Founders: Abdul Kader Saadi and Anwar Nusseibeh
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Hospitality
Size: 25 employees
Funding stage: Pre-series A
Investment: $1 million
Investors: Seed funding, angel investors
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
Paatal Lok season two
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Afghanistan squad
Gulbadin Naib (captain), Mohammad Shahzad (wicketkeeper), Noor Ali Zadran, Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmat Shah, Asghar Afghan, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Najibullah Zadran, Samiullah Shinwari, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Dawlat Zadran, Aftab Alam, Hamid Hassan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
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China
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